Orangette

You know me well

2012-05-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

My manuscript is due on June 1. Hello from the Cave - or, as I first typed, "Hell from the Cave," which has a nice slasher-movie ring to it. Hi. For those keeping track, no, you are not crazy: the book was supposed to be due in March. I had to ask for an extension, unfortunately, because of the small human under my shirt who makes me very tired, and because there’s been a difficult health

No such thing

2012-04-21T16:40:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week, I think it was, one of you kindly wrote to me, asking if I might do a post about what I’ve been eating for lunch lately. The reader who wrote to me is pregnant, and there are a number of foods that us pregnant ladies are told to avoid, making quick, easy lunches hard to come by: no deli meats, no (uncooked) cured meats, no high-mercury fish (tuna, for example), no cheeses of

The first night

2012-04-05T14:42:00.001-07:00

Hi from here.I should clarify: not here exactly. These photos were taken at our dinner table, but I’m currently sitting at my desk. I would much rather be there than here. Oh well.These shots are from the first night of 2012, with our friends Ben, Bonnie, and Sam. We had wanted to go crabbing and catch our New Year’s dinner ourselves, but Ben and Brandon wound up with food poisoning on New

The best part of the job

2012-03-21T14:49:00.003-07:00

I am supposed to be writing a manuscript, not baking rye crumble bars. No more rye crumble bars no more rye crumble bars no more rye crumble bars no more rye crumble bars no more rye crumble bars.When I found out that I was pregnant, I asked my publisher to extend my deadline, which was supposed to be March 1. I wasn’t sure how ill I would feel, but I’d heard plenty of pregnant lady horror

This is important

2012-03-08T00:46:00.006-08:00

You people. YOU PEOPLE.I’m still blinking in disbelief at the kindness you’ve shared with me and Brandon and Tiny Person Under My Shirt. I hate secrets, and this secret, no matter how well intentioned, surprised me with how heavy it felt, how unwieldy it was to carry around. It’s been a relief to to share it with you, and an unexpected thrill to have it met with such encouragement and

September 4

2012-02-29T20:49:00.003-08:00

Hi.I’ve never made an announcement like this before, and it feels very awkward and shouty to do it through a computer screen, so please be nice and pretend that we’re sitting in your living room. I’ll give you a minute to get settled.The thing is, I’ve been working on my manuscript, yes, yes, but I’ve also been working on something else. That something else has made it difficult, actually, to

Dear World,

2012-02-07T07:55:00.000-08:00

I am writing to you, once again, from my friend Ben’s dining room.When I was here last August, writing my brains out, I had a hunch that a return visit might be helpful before my manuscript deadline. Turns out, that was correct. In Ohio, there are no Brandons to distract me, no Delanceys to worry about, no Jacks or Alices to bark suddenly at absolutely nothing and, boom, scare the organs out

I am here to tell you

2012-01-25T23:30:00.000-08:00

First things first: thank you for the well wishes! That cold was a real heavyweight champion, the type that takes you down so hard that, for five or six days, your eyelids never make it above half-mast. I’m so glad that’s behind me. Though I did sneeze twice as I was typing that last sentence.A couple of years ago, not long after we opened Delancey, back in the days when I was still cooking

You can count on me

2012-01-11T22:51:00.000-08:00

I am writing to you today with a wool scarf wound around my entire upper body and a wool blanket tied at my waist. I have a cold, and Brandon has a cold, and before that, he had food poisoning. We are a house under siege. That, however, has not prevented me from getting that salted chocolate cookie recipe that you wanted. Nor has it stopped me from eating said salted chocolate cookies. You

December 24

2011-12-28T16:34:00.000-08:00

Whenever we spend the holidays with my relatives in northern California, we eat Dungeness crab on Christmas Eve. I can’t remember when the tradition was started, but when Brandon and I got together, I introduced him to it. He was still mostly a vegetarian then, and he’d never tasted crab, but he was curious about it - enough to grab a couple of crab legs and, however awkwardly, get himself

In my better moments

2011-12-15T00:16:00.000-08:00

About three weeks ago, I printed out all the drafts I’ve written so far for my next book, and then I spent three weeks avoiding reading them. I finally got up the courage on Sunday night. I poured myself a beer, sat down at the dining room table, and read through all of it. Afterward, I wanted to stab myself in the eye. But that didn’t seem like it would make the manuscript any better, so I

To poach a pear

2011-12-07T21:36:00.000-08:00

My mother is usually the one who makes poached pears. I have a photo of her in an old family album, holding a platter of them. By the length of her hair, I’m guessing that the year was 1982. My father must have snapped the picture as they were leaving for a holiday party. That was the kind of thing he liked to do. She’s standing in the wood-paneled den of the house we lived in until I was 13

It’s my specialty

2011-11-23T15:01:00.000-08:00

Hi. I am writing this from my in-laws’ kitchen. Brandon is out on a bike ride with his dad. THEY’RE BOTH WEARING SPANDEX!!!! It’s a great day to be in New Jersey.Before the holiday sets in, while it’s still relatively quiet in the house, I wanted to share a recipe with you. I should say first that it’s not for Thanksgiving. I know you already have plenty of that. What we have here is

October 31

2011-11-13T23:59:00.000-08:00

We’ve arrived at the end of my trip. The last walk.The way I remember it, the wind was blowing like mad. I have no idea how these pictures came out looking so peaceful.Christophe and Gemma led the way through Holyrood Park, along the skirt of Arthur’s Seat. Another time, I want to climb to the top. I’ll have to go back.I think I could live in Edinburgh. Next lifetime, maybe.Hope your week is

October 29

2011-11-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

To those of you who advised me to go to Scotland: YOU WERE SO RIGHT. I get it now.In order to get there, I had to endure a bout of verbal abuse from a disgruntled airline employee whom I will henceforth remember as Psycho EasyJet Guy, but I made it. My friends greeted me in Edinburgh with a bag of Mini Cheddars, and shortly after, there was a homecooked meal and a long sleep on a very

October 19

2011-11-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

I come from a family that goes to church only on occasional Christmas Eves, but somehow, I have come to love the feeling of being inside a church. I like the high ceilings, the wood and the stone and the gold leaf, and I like them best when they’re empty. There’s no other silence like it. My favorite church is in Paris, and it’s called Saint-Sulpice. I first loved it because my grandmother

October 22

2011-10-31T03:42:00.000-07:00

I sat down to write this post last night at a kitchen table in Edinburgh. My friend Gemma was making barley soup, and Christophe was at the sink behind me, doing the last dishes from breakfast. If you had told me three weeks ago that I would be in their kitchen last night, I would have looked at you like you’d grown a second head. For once, I like being wrong.We’ve been talking about a feeling

October 16, 17

2011-10-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

I love the mistakes that come with using film.Often, I like the mistakes more than the shots that turn out. That’s part of why I started shooting film. For the surprises.Whenever I pick up a roll at the lab, it’s like Christmas morning. Of course, it’s sometimes a sad Christmas, like the year when I found two sweatshirts in the box that I was sure contained a Cocker Spaniel puppy. But I’m

October 15

2011-10-21T03:08:00.000-07:00

Hi, friends.I’m in Paris now.I know I just typed that as though it were nothing, but what I meant was: I’M IN PARIS NOW! That sentence should always be written in all caps, with an exclamation point. I took the train down from London on Wednesday, and I’ve been staying with a friend. From where I’m sitting on the pullout sofa in her living room, I can hear a moped in the square outside and

October 14

2011-10-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

When I was eighteen, I took my first big trip without my parents, and before I left, my mother suggested that I pack a nice notebook to use as a journal. In my normal life, I’ve never been a journal-keeper, but I took her advice, and for roughly fifteen years now, every time I’ve taken a substantial trip, I’ve kept a record of my days. Sometimes I’m a real champ, and I’ll write down every

You're lucky, she told me.

2011-10-14T01:25:00.000-07:00

Hi, friends.This is not the post I had expected to write next. In my head, there were going to be cheers, an obscene number of exclamation points, and maybe a picture of the evening street outside our apartment in Paris. But due to sad and unforeseen circumstances, our Paris Diary project has been postponed. I don't know how I even managed to type that sentence, because I hardly believe what

Paris Diary

2011-10-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

I first met my friend Maria in 2005. She had a blog then called port2port - maybe you remember it? - and I can’t remember who found who, but at some point, we started reading each other’s sites. She lives in Portland, Maine, but that fall, she came to Seattle to visit a friend, and we went out for doughnuts and had a drink at the Alibi Room, my favorite bar back then. I was nervous to meet her

Out on this limb

2011-10-06T21:10:00.000-07:00

I was planning to start this post with something about food, because that’s the way these things usually work. But I can’t seem to start much of anything, because this is sitting next to my chair.This is Alice. As of last Friday, she has turned our family of three into a family of four. She is nine months old and weighs about 35 pounds, and though we have no idea what breed she is, we’re

No frosting, no ceremony

2011-09-26T17:04:00.000-07:00

We left our window open last night, and when I woke up today, there was rain on the sill! I am wearing a scarf that I made! Let the hoarding of plums commence!What I thought about saying next was, "The citrus is coming! The citrus is coming!" (In the privacy of my own head, I spout this kind of garbage the way Old Faithful does boiling water.) I decided against it, but during the thirty

Not a tomato sandwich

2011-09-16T18:38:00.000-07:00

So, I turned 33 a couple of days ago. And Brandon, who was but a pup of 23 when I met him, turned 30 a few days before that. Thirty! The staff at Delancey wrote BRANDON TURNS OLD TODAY on the chalkboard and spelled out OLD BOSS in alphabet magnets on the ice machine. He told me that he hasn’t thought much about being in his thirties, but I think he secretly likes the idea. I’m on the fence